maybe not officially, but i always sort of saw u as another competent artist to whom i could compare my pictures to. up until i started going to our school i always considered myself the best because all my other classmates and friends up till that point could draw little more than stick figures.... and then i met u and i actually had somebody to compete with. i had alot of fun with it. ^^

Oh, I see. Well, there's like a shitload of artists who are a million times better than me right now and I've never really seen myself as the 'best' since art is so terribly subjective anyway. I don't wish to be rude but I want to be quite honest that I can't see you as a rival or someone I can compete with. That is because we have entirely different views on art. You prefer to draw flat art with straight-forward, hard-edged shading and coloring whereas I am more inclined to a painterly style. There's nothing to seriously objectively compare since we're drawing in two different genres.

From what I see, her hips are even too narrow for her shoulders and bust, but I offset that with the ambiguity of the swan's wing skirts. If you have a better alternative, please feel free to outline it in blue. I appreciate your input.

I was intending that form of figure similar to what you outlined because it is more balanced, but a ballerina would never have such a balanced body. More often than not, ballerinas are emaciated, delicate waifs. If I had to accent the breasts, the only way to make her look thinner is to drag out her entire body.

Furthermore, I draw manga/anime where exaggeration is far more allowed. In fact, if I drew something so accurate to human average, it wouldn't have the same feel as a manga/anime piece, so I don't believe I've done anything wrong by drawing someone that seems anorexic. You can try to convince me otherwise, of course, and I would invite any discussion as long as it doesn't involve 'anorexia is unhealthy' since that is stating the obvious.

Okay, I see what you were intending now.In that case, yeah. You did get the elongation of the torso right. (I didn't realize the intent behind the exaggeration.)

You're right about her thigh, it was a little thin. What mostly bothered me was the angle of the hips, though. Like I mentioned before, I used myself as a reference to get those blue outlines to look right. Even the position I ended up with was a rather painful. She's leaning really far in one direction, yet sitting flat on her butt as if she was facing another direction. It makes her hips look like they were detached from her spine.

Anyway, I made another outline based on what you had intended. I shaved some of the "fat" on her butt, and made her torso longer. Her left leg is propped up so her thigh is pointing at the viewer; you can't really make that longer, unfortunately. [link]

You must have had fun drawing this. I'm enjoying playing with these outlines, and she has a lovely character design.

Ooooh~ This is super helpful. Thank you very much. * u* I'm like... afraid to look at myself in the mirror so I don't get much referencing, and this is like quality comparison material.

I didn't have much fun drawing her to begin with but I did eventually come to enjoy it. At first, I was just drawing her outlines... but then I got sick of doing line art since I was going to paint over it anyway so I BSed everything together and it somehow was more fun that way. XD;

The redline looks fine to me, but it still looks a bit strange in the final product - I think the main culprit is the shadow on the inside of her right leg (viewer's left) - it looks a bit too dark and hard-edged and gives me the feeling that the legs are further apart than they are.

Indeed I believe that is the case. I should have used green or blue for the shadows but... it just looked awkward. u_u; I needed to use hard shadow though. It's lighting logic. The closer something is, the harder the shadow's edge. The shadow is cast by the other leg and the skirts which are both very close to the leg.

The wideness of the hips is partially due to the thick feathers on the skirt, both of which were to offset the exaggeratedly long torso and legs and the unusually large bust. I wanted to give her the look of something 'supreme,' or worthy of her imperiousness so this is what I ended up with. Although I do see where you're coming from because I drew the thighs far too skinny-like. I guess I just have to mature more before I can see it instinctively.

Elongating legs is easiest when you do it from below the knees. I notice people doing that with ball jointed dolls. It gives a character a more elegant fairy-like appearance. Elongating a torso is harder. I'm not positive, but I think it usually turns out best if you elongate the ribcage, rather than the abdomen.

I think I've already maxed out the length I can elongate from below the knees. D; her calves look like they're about to snap. And I did indeed elongate the torso via ribcage. If you look at where the 'break' right below the breasts are formed, it's a lot longer than what you have bluelined. My problem here might be that I drew the thighs too skinny. Then again, anime people look better when they're unhealthily thin.

There was an artist whose stand I visited in a local art fair last year who had an entire stall set up for colored pencil drawings done with varying shades and tones of white, gray, and low-saturation colors. It was REALLY impressive. I think my mom took one of her classes; if she remembers the artist I'll link you to her stuff.